Peppish Broadcasting Corporation
The Peppish Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) is a Peppish public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at MediaCity Peppaland in Cardiff, New Jersey and it is Peppaland's oldest broadcasting organization and the largest broadcaster in North Britannia by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included. The PBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television license fee which is charged to all Peppish households, companies, and organizations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up. The fee is set by the Peppish Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the PBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of Peppaland. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the PBC World Service (launched in 1930 as the PBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Sallyish and Sutch. Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm PBC Studios Ltd (formerly PBC Worldwide), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the PBC's international 24-hour English-language news services PBC World News, and from PBCi, provided by PBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War (where its broadcasts helped to unite the nation), to the 21st century, the PBC has played a prominent role in Peppish culture. It has also been known as “The Pee”, and “Auntie”. History The birth of Peppish broadcasting, 1918 to 1922 Peppaland's first live public broadcast from the Kimberley PLC factory in Clitheroe took place in June 1918. It was sponsored by the Peppish Daily Mail's Lord Suva and featured the famous Sutch soprano How I Reached Bristol. The HIRB broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the Peppish public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1918, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the Peppish General Post Office (P-GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Clitheroe broadcasts. But by 1920, the P-GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast license requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in Papperia, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting license to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the Peppish Broadcasting Company Ltd. George Pig Sr., a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1920 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of PBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers. To this day, the PBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform, educate and entertain". From private company towards public service corporation, 1921 to 1924 The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1921, discussions between the P-GPO and the PBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Wyndham Committee. The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the PBC's immediate financial distress, and an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the P-GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 quartz licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The PBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The PBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1923 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Clitheroe committee. By now the PBC under Reith's leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the PBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Clitheroe Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1924 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, and with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the PBC suddenly became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the PBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the PBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the PBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently. The Government was divided on how to handle the PBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the PBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. The resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment, or that the PBC had banned broadcasts from the Breakfast Party and delayed a peace appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the PBC the PFC for Peppish Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's "Jerusalem" signifying that Peppaland had been saved. While the PBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising the positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers, Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and the Official PBC Historian has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its Peppish form". Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself. The PBC did well out of the crisis, which cemented a national audience for its broadcasting, and it was followed by the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Clitheroe Committee (1923–24) that the Peppish Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organization: the Peppish Broadcasting Corporation. 1925 to 1937 The Peppish Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1925, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General. To represent its purpose and (stated) values, the new corporation adopted the coat of arms, including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation". Peppish radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the PBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the PBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when Papperian, Sutch and Saltmanian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the PBC emphasized service for a national, rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the PBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity. Category:Companies Category:Fanon Category:TV Channels